Topic: Developing FF4kster: a comprehensive editor for FF4

[chillyfeez]

Ah, I hadn't noticed that! That is very helpful!

[Pinkpuff]

Dropping in to say thank you so, so much for your hard work, everyone. Also, thanks for finally implementing the item description editing, Pinkpuff! :)

You're quite welcome! Thank you for putting it to good use! As far as I'm concerned, the highest form of praise is when people actually use the tool I'm making.

Hahah, I could've done my update back in march?

Yup! In fact I had you specifically in mind when I added that particular feature.

Until I was fixing a glitch for Project II (and thereby Combat Boost), I noticed that you added coordinates in your map editor which makes editing placements and event setups So much easier than calculating it in your head, thank you very much for that!

You're very much welcome! Once again a product of using my own editor to make an actual large-scale hack, and noticing things that are off or awkward that I probably wouldn't have concerned myself with otherwise. In fact there are quite a few little things like that here and there; the changelog at the end of the readme itemizes them all if you're interested.

However, it's back to the more abstract grindstone as I am now in the process of implementing the tile editor, including the dynamic reading of tile graphics from the rom (now that I've finally got that 4bpp issue figured out; took long enough).

[LordGarmonde]

As far as I'm concerned, the highest form of praise is when people actually use the tool I'm making.

Then please accept my praise as well. After my exhausting journey through lands of Stats and Levels (trying to perscribe logic where there seems none!) I pulled up my own hack and put some good work into it. It was good times! - Thanks Pink! - Especially for the Event/Map Preview - Holy Wow does that speed things along!                  -> you for your continued sorcery! 

[Pinkpuff]

The real sorcery is all the awesome ASM hacking you guys seem to be able to do. I've tried a thing or two with my FF1 hack, "Final Fantasy Negative One", and it is really hard. I really feel like ASM coding is like, the "dark arts" of rom hacking. What I'm doing is more like, bookkeeping. I'm just taking stuff you guys have researched and figured out and compiling it all into one place.

So I'm less Black Mage  and more... Scholar 

[LordGarmonde]

I remember Negative One - Thank you for including the descriptions of what's what in the 1st town - it transformed my initial reaction of  into  Oh OK, I see; cool!  - I do loves me some FF1 hacks. 

[Grimoire LD]

I feel the exact opposite. I can grasp a concept when I can see it in motion, but setting up a program to take advantage of that and all of the checks, conditionals, and balancing acts that must be done seems like a nightmare. At least with ASM coding I can read what is going on and if I see available opportunity and reason, change it to suit my own needs.

To me, those who create tools and programs are the true heroes. The highest praise that can be given to an ASM hacker/reader is to have their findings used in some manners by a programmer that will then be able to make it easily moddable for anyone and everyone.

I will have to take a look at the changelog though. A lot of neat little things I've noticed.

[Grimoire LD]

Hmm, I don't know if I'd consider this a bug, syntax error, or what it may be, but when you try to create your own condition flags in the AI editor the program spits out that if it is not 01 the flag is "??" and 01 is considered "current flag" but the normal AI before they're changed shows the proper number of the condition flag. Is there something really wrong going on here or is it just a syntax error in this case?

[chillyfeez]

It gets cut off after "current flag," but it should read "current flag plus [whatever number you selected]."
In the actual AI, selecting anything below 80 there sets the event flag to whatever it is plus that value. Over 80 sets the flag to that value minus 80.
Does that help?

[Grimoire LD]

Oh, I see now. 128=0 129=1 130=2 alright, yes. That makes a good deal of sense in some respects. Thanks for that Chillyfeez!

[Pinkpuff]

Er... so... there's no problem then? Or is there something that needs to be fixed/changed on my end? Or just described better?

[Grimoire LD]

Looks like everything is fine, but if I may make a suggestion...

Lots of things in the editor save their spot when you click on them, the event editor for example saves the last instruction that is referenced instead of jumping back to defaults and move from there but it is not so with any matter in AI, thereby making things possibly a little more cumbersome than they should be.

But that's my only suggestion for the moment.

I did find a few new things out about the Rydia-Golbez battle, which would allow people to change the unit that is "hidden" and re-emerges.

[chillyfeez]

Er... so... there's no problem then? Or is there something that needs to be fixed/changed on my end? Or just described better?

The wording could probably be clearer. As it is, the hacker would need to know "the secret" in order to use battle flags effectively. And even then, counting off can be a bit tedious.
Maybe split the instruction up? Like 0-127 could say "add to current flag [that number]," and 128-255 could say "set flag to [0-127]."

[Pinkpuff]

Looks like everything is fine, but if I may make a suggestion...

Lots of things in the editor save their spot when you click on them, the event editor for example saves the last instruction that is referenced instead of jumping back to defaults and move from there but it is not so with any matter in AI, thereby making things possibly a little more cumbersome than they should be.

But that's my only suggestion for the moment.

I'll see what I can do.

I did find a few new things out about the Rydia-Golbez battle, which would allow people to change the unit that is "hidden" and re-emerges.

Sounds good! I'll probably throw it into the "solobattle" section.

The wording could probably be clearer. As it is, the hacker would need to know "the secret" in order to use battle flags effectively. And even then, counting off can be a bit tedious.
Maybe split the instruction up? Like 0-127 could say "add to current flag [that number]," and 128-255 could say "set flag to [0-127]."

Ah ok now I understand. That should be an easy fix.

[LordGarmonde]

Two questions:

1) Would it be possible to set something up where a user preference can be stored? Particularly I'm thinking about the toggle for indexing. I used to turn it on occasionally - but then more and more and now all the time. I don't know how hard that would be to implement at this stage but I just wanted to throw it out there.

2) Do you know of any other editors that I should strictly avoid? I realized that as an automatic reflex I had opened one of my ROMs with Zyrthofar's Editor (SMCHack) to check on some palette swapping I had done for NPCs in FF4kster - only to think after..."uh oh...maybe I shouldn't have done that."

I now think I did muck something up doing that because now in the event I was working on a NPC moves right when another moves up and Cecil spinning is toggled on (I didn't do that) - even when the event is over he is still spinning with every step (LOL!).

At the moment I am removing my shortcuts to all editors beside yours; but if you know any offhand that will/will not work let me know. :)

- Also, keep up the great work!! 

Note:   I just came on this :  http://slickproductions.org/forum/index.php?topic=144.msg1059#msg1059   
                  - Congrats on having made it so far! 

[chillyfeez]

Zyrthofar's can do some serious sh*t to your ROM, but only if you save. Still very useful for graphics previews.
I've seen what you're talking about happen before, and near as I can tell it's just a byproduct of natural limitations of the "perform actions simultaneously" command.